News

Interim Management Statement Quarter 3

STV Group plc today releases its Interim Management Statement covering the period from 21 August 2013 to 30 October 2013. The Group continues to make strong progress and deliver growth in the period with performance and trading in line with forecasts:

In the year-to-date to end of Q3, national advertising revenues were in line with expectations, up 6%. Looking ahead, in the year-to-date to end of November national advertising revenues are expected to continue ahead of the market, up 5%. Regional airtime revenues were up 4% at the end of Q3 and are expected to be up 5% in the year-to-date to end of November.​

STV’s digital business continues to grow with growth digital revenues performing strongly and expected to be up 21% in the year-to-date to end of November.

During the period new digital services targeted at consumers in Scotland’s largest cities have been successfully launched. These mark the next generation of STV’s digital services and reinforce the commitment to serve local audiences across Scotland.

STV Productions announces a new commission for a quiz show, The Lie, co-produced with GroupM Entertainment for Irish broadcaster, TV3, STV with production of 16 episodes of the show commencing in December 2013. This announcement follows recent commissions secured in the period for ITV1 (12 episodes of the second series of Catchphrase) and Channel 5 (one-off documentary, Pothole Britain).

Earlier this month a new international partnership with Red Arrow Entertainment Group, incorporating co-investment, co-development and worldwide distribution was announced. This will support the international growth ambitions of the productions business. This partnership will operate in conjunction with the existing format deal between STV Productions and US production company, Kinetic Content, who are part of the Red Arrow Entertainment Group.

STV will host an event for analysts at 12:30pm today and there will be no further trading information disclosed.

Rob Woodward, Chief Executive Officer of STV Group plc, said: "We remain on track to achieve our growth targets in 2013 and continue to make strong progress in delivery of our strategy to grow non-broadcast earnings. Our digital growth ambitions are supported by the successful launch earlier this month of new City based digital services creating new opportunities for our commercial partners. STV Productions continues to secure new commissions across genres and today’s commissioning announcement demonstrates our growing credentials in entertainment programming.”